Many women are concerned, given the way Premarin is made, that other hormone-adjacent topicals might carry the same ethical baggage. Good news: Parlor Games ingredients are plant-derived — meaning no horses, no animals, no cruelty involved in making your favorite topicals.

So what does "plant-derived" actually mean?

Our diagram walks you through it. The journey starts with wild yams. Yams contain a naturally occurring compound called diosgenin — a plant sterol that has been used in cosmetic and pharmaceutical ingredient production for decades.

Through a series of chemical steps, raw diosgenin is modified at the molecular level to produce the active botanical-derived ingredients that go into plant-based cosmetic formulations. Think of it as the plant world's version of precision craftsmanship: start with what nature gave us, refine it carefully, end up with something your skin recognizes.

That's the plant origin story — and it's why the ingredients in our formulations are gentle, well-studied, and cruelty-free from the very first step.